AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Gubernatorial candidates say it’s time to focus on lingering economic challenges facing rural communities following Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s eight years steadying Maine’s finances.
The Associated Press polled the state’s Republican, Democratic, independent and third-party registered candidates ahead of the June primary. Candidates largely agreed that the fiscally conservative governor has improved the state’s financial situation, but disagreed on how best to address the state’s aging and shrinking workforce.
“We have more land mass, more coastline, and an almost identical population, yet Maine continues to struggle to keep and attract new employers while New Hampshire thrives,” said Republican candidate Mary Mayhew, a former Democrat and lobbyist who headed Maine’s health and human services agency under LePage.
Candidates largely split along partisan lines on adult-use marijuana sales and ranked-choice voting.
Maine’s next governor will face key issues left unresolved by lawmakers, rising state revenues and the aftermath of ballot referendum campaigns. The term-limited governor, meanwhile, has sworn he’ll work up until his last day in office.
ECONOMY
Maine is enjoying record-low unemployment, record-high private sector employment and rising state revenues fueling a $130 million budgetary surplus.
But economic inequality is leaving many Mainers behind in the nation’s oldest state, whose rural communities have been hit by paper mill closures, an aging workforce and a lack of population growth.
Democratic attorney Adam Cote said Maine lags behind New England and the country in economic growth and personal income. While the nation’s gross domestic product increased by 1.2 percent between 2006 and 2016, Maine’s GDP remained virtually flat, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Mary Mayhew, a Republican, proposed eliminating the income tax. Shawn Moody said Maine must keep reducing red tape and lowering taxes while improving career and technical education.
Businessman Alan Caron, an Independent, and Democratic lobbyist Betsy Sweet called for more loans and grants for small businesses, while Adam Cote proposed investing in clean energy, paid family leave, workforce training, infrastructure and broadband access. Democratic Sen. Mark Dion called for restoring social services that LePage slashed, and Mark Eves called for debt-free secondary education.
Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills said Maine should look at its advantages over other states: like “beautiful and spacious abandoned mill buildings” that could host data storage facilities one day.
MARIJUANA
Maine voters went to the voting booth in 2016 to legalize recreational, adult-use marijuana use and commercial sales, and lawmakers this year passed a bill to allow such purchases once regulators draw up rules.
The law adds an excise tax on pot sales and limiting advertising to children. Lawmakers overrode a veto by LePage, who said marijuana remains illegal on the federal level.
Mayhew said she’d push to repeal recreational pot legalization but said she’d back strict regulations to protect children if marijuana use and possession remains legal. Maine shouldn’t pick a fight with the government on a drug that remains illegal at the federal level, said Republican Sen. Garrett Mason.
Moody, meanwhile, said Maine must ensure kids don’t have increased access to marijuana and that employers have “safe and productive workplaces.”
All Democrats and independents said they would move forward to allow recreational marijuana sales. Former Democratic Rep. Diane Russell said she’d expunge the records of those convicted for certain marijuana crimes.
RANKED CHOICE VOTING
Maine is set to become the nation’s first to allow voters to rank candidates in a statewide primary after rounds of legal action and legislative delay.
Proponents, buoyed by grassroots support and out-of-state nonprofits, told voters that the change could have prevented LePage from winning in 2010 with 37.6 percent of votes. About 52 percent of Mainers approved the reform in 2016.
Supporters say because a candidate with a majority of votes wins, the June primary could be more civil than normal because candidates need broad support.
Maine voters will use ranked-choice voting to pick June primary winners while also voting whether to keep the system in place for future primary and federal races.
Lawmakers have lacked the needed votes to start the process of changing Maine’s constitution to allow ranked-choice voting for legislative and gubernatorial November elections as supporters originally envisioned.
Seven Democrats and independent candidates explicitly said they support such a constitutional amendment.
Republicans and independent Ken Capron said they’d oppose such efforts.
“Ranked-choice voting is just a convoluted way that liberals are trying to rig the system because they are mad they could not beat Gov. LePage fair and square,” Mayhew said.
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